Review for Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion - Complete Season 2

Introduction

I’m doing it again, using a judicious bit of cut and paste to churn out two reviews for the price of one. It’s not my fault though, as there are just enough in the way of differences between the Blu-ray and DVD release, beyond just image resolution, to justify a second look at Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 Season 2. Once more, I’m checking each disc for extra features, a quick look at image and audio quality, but while I’ll be watching the whole series in Japanese on the Blu-rays, I’ll just be selecting a single episode from each DVD to watch in English.


One thing to note about this second series of Code Geass Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 was that on its initial release by Beez, it suffered a compulsory cut at the hands of the BBFC. Apparently one suggestive image in episode 10 lacked context and was liable to corrupt, and Beez replaced it with the US broadcast version, which used a different image. I received check discs from Kazé which look suspiciously like final retail discs, and my first instinct was to check episode 10. This time around it is uncut. Either someone at the BBFC relented, or it might be wise to pounce on these discs before someone realises.


In an alternate world, 10th August 2010 saw the invasion of Japan by the Holy Empire of Britannia. The giant walking powered suits known as Knightmare Frames quickly overwhelmed Japan’s conventional defences, and the nation fell in the space of a month. Re-designated as Area 11 of the Empire, its very identity erased, the Elevens became second class citizens in their own home, ruled over by the aristocratic Britannians. But as with every ruthless overseer, resistance soon developed. Lelouch Lamperouge is an exiled Britannian prince with his own grudge against the Empire, as well as a desire to fulfil his promise to his crippled sister Nunnally, to create a peaceful world for her when she regains her sight.


It’s a terrorist attack that gives Lelouch the weapon with which to advance his timetable. Terrorists steal and make off with a container of poison gas, and the Britannians mobilise a force to hunt them down. Lelouch, playing hooky from his prestigious school gets caught up in the mayhem. It isn’t gas that has been stolen though; it’s a secret for which the Britannians would indiscriminately kill to protect. It’s a green-haired girl named CC. CC senses that Lelouch is the one that she has been waiting for, and bestows a gift upon him, the ability to force anyone to obey his will, a geass. With his keen strategic mind, and his vendetta against the Empire, Lelouch now has the tools to take the fight to the invaders.


At the end of the first season, it seemed that Lelouch was about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as when his plan to take Tokyo from the Britannians unfolded, he got pulled away at the worst possible moment when his sister was kidnapped. The series climaxed with a cliff-hanger, with his identity revealed to Suzaku and Kallen. The second season catches up to the story a year later, and it seems that the world is back to normal. The Black Knight Rebellion has been forcefully put down, its ring-leaders arrested, but Lelouch is back at the academy, going about his everyday school life, acting as if nothing ever happened. Or is he acting? Lelouch is back at school with his younger brother Rolo? Viletta Nu is his Phys Ed teacher? He doesn’t remember being Zero and leading the rebellion? He doesn’t even remember Nunnally? He’s back to his normal self, escaping his ennui by gambling with nobles, but it’s one such outing at the Babel Tower casino that gets interrupted by a terrorist attack. Leading the attack is a certain green-haired girl who has a reminder for Lelouch.


Kazé Entertainment release the 25-episode Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 Season 2 across 6 DVD discs.

Disc 1
01. The Day a Demon Awakens
02. Plan for Independent Japan
03. Imprisoned in Campus
04. Counterattack at the Gallows
05. Knights of the Round

Disc 2
06. Surprise Attack Over the Pacific
07. The Abandoned Mask
08. One Million Miracles
09. A Bride in the Vermilion Forbidden City

Disc 3
10. When Shen Hu Wins Glory
11. Power of Passion
12. Love Attack!
13. Assassin From the Past


Disc 4
14. Geass Hunt
15. The Cs’ World
16. United Federation of Nations – Resolution Number One
17. The Taste of Humiliation

Disc 5
18. Final Battle Tokyo II
19. Betrayal
20. Emperor Dismissed
21. The Ragnarok Connection

Disc 6
22. Emperor Lelouch
23. Schneizel’s Guise
24. The Grip of Damocles
25. Re;

Picture

Code Geass Season 2 gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer on these dual layer DVDs from Kazé. The image is clear and sharp throughout, and presented in native PAL with the requisite 4% speedup. There is the odd moment of jerkiness in the pans, and fine edges and lines are prone to a bit of shimmer and aliasing, but overall this is a quality presentation of an anime show. I watched some episodes on a CRT widescreen set and was more than happy with the presentation. When up-scaled to an HD panel it looks as good as any such anime DVD can be expected to look. It’s only in direct comparison to the Blu-ray that the more limited colour palette, the interlacing and the compression make it pale. But if all you have is a DVD player, and no immediate plans to upgrade, then this DVD collection is adequate.


It transpires that the character designs for Code Geass come from none other than CLAMP, the collective behind shows and manga such as Tsubasa, xxxHolic, Tokyo Babylon and X, but the angular chins and the large eyes are notably diminished in Code Geass, with just a hint of their trademark style getting through. It’s an impressive animation, full of detail and energetically animated. This isn’t one of those shows that resort to still frames when the budget tightens, and the overall quality of the show is always high. The world design too is of equivalent quality, and the giant robots and fantastic technology integrate well into this alternate vision of the near future. If you’re wondering at the white pizza boxes and blank advertising hoardings, this show was sponsored in Japan by Pizza Hut, but that sponsorship doesn’t extend outside the territory, and was removed.

Sound

The audio comes in DD 2.0 Surround English and Japanese, with player forced subtitles for the Japanese tracks, and player forced signs for the English track. As always with a Kazé disc, if you are hard of hearing and prefer the English dub, you’re screwed, and their DVDs make it practically impossible to change tracks on the fly without losing your place in the episode. For the DVD episodes I watched, I went with the English audio, and found it to be a pretty solid anime dub, working well for the drama and the action, but faltering a little when it came to the comedy. The stereo works well enough to convey the action, and the show’s music drives the story along, enhancing the emotional content without overwhelming it. The show also gets a set of very catchy theme songs. The audio seems pitch-corrected for the PAL speed-up.


While I could accept that licensor requirements might force a Blu-ray’s audio and subtitles to be locked, I can’t believe that the same restrictions apply to DVDs, and that Kazé keep doing it with their discs is pure insanity. Also, they can show captions, and they can show dialogue, but they can’t show them both simultaneously. Given that Code Geass Season 2 has more in the way of on-screen captions to translate, then I hope you still have hold of the original Beez release, as while this is the uncut version, that’s no compensation for the inconvenience of its authoring. Best to bite the bullet and get the Blu-ray, which at least lets you change the audio track while watching the show.

Extras

While the Blu-ray has no extras at all, the DVDs do have some fragments left of the goodies that were doled out with the Beez release, and Kazé front load the discs with trailers as well.

Across the six discs you’ll find trailers for Code Geass Season 1, Bleach The Movie 4 Hell Verse, the first Berserk movie, Persona 4 The Animation, Journey to Agartha, Black Lagoon, Roujin Z, and Planzet.


You’ll also find the shows various textless credits sequences (textless except for burnt in karaoke subs), and 9 pencil sketch galleries with artwork from the show amounting to a few hundred images, presented as achingly slow click-through slideshows.

If you had enjoyed the commentaries and picture dramas on Season 1, and were looking forward to more of the same here, then you will be disappointed, especially as the original Beez DVD release, and the Bandai and Madman DVD releases of Code Geass R2 did have the audio commentaries and bonus animations. Given that they were there for the first season, for Kazé to leave the extras out at this point just smacks of stinginess, and makes this release feel a little cheap.

Conclusion

Code Geass R2 really is the anime that cried wolf. Season 1 of this series was nigh on perfect, a brilliant blend of narrative, character, action and an epic plot, replete with plot twists and dark revelations. It would consistently deliver the unexpected, but in a way that was wholly believable, and natural given the story that it told. Every so often there would be an ‘Oh My God!’ moment that would rock the viewer back on his heels, make them re-evaluate the show in the light of this new information, and add new layers of complexity and intrigue to the plot. It was compelling, must see television, that succeeded by never losing sight of the story that it was telling, and the characters it was developing.


Along comes the second season, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, and it loses most of that perfect balance. This time the emphasis is on making the story bigger, wilder, even more fantastic, and consequently believability of narrative, and staying true to the core of the characters is left by the wayside. This time it is all about the revelation, the plot twist, and the cliff-hanger, and each episode runs like a carefully honed train timetable. Every episode builds up to a plot twist, and one that is guaranteed to be just that bit more outrageous than the one in the previous episode. Halfway through this series, I was hearing the nasal voice of an imaginary rail announcer, “The plot twist now pulling into episode 13 is the main character demise, viewers waiting for the major betrayal and character resurrection should cross via the footbridge to episodes 14 and 15.”


It really does get far-fetched and out there as the series draws to a conclusion. There are so many betrayals, back-stabbings, and simple switches of allegiance that by the time the story had reached its endgame, I had completely lost track of who was on which side, and just who the ‘good’ guys were. I use that advisedly as there’s no real hero here, just varying degrees of anti-hero. Also, I have to admit that the bounds of my credibility were totally shot to hell by the time the third plan for world domination by yet another power-mad character was revealed. Everyone in this show wants to be a Bond villain, and it turns out that everyone has a Geass power of their own.


Speaking of which, one of my largest disappointments with this second series is that Geass is never really explained. While they do go into a little more detail about CC and VV, and develop their characters and back story some more, the whole rationale behind Geass is never explained, just why these immortal beings are going around gifting humans with these weird powers. Given that the first series made much of the mystery behind Geass, that the second series neglects it makes it a missed opportunity. Also neglected are the supporting characters, the cast that was so well integrated into the story in the first series. They begin that way in the second as well, but as the story grows larger and more epic, and the emphasis turns to the inevitable plot twists, the supporting cast sees less and less screen time, and are in the end relegated to a montage.


There are plenty of positives to be taken from this second series, and it’s really only in comparison to the first that it disappoints. The first thirteen episodes of this run do continue in the vein of the first, despite the almighty clanger of an apparent reset button at the start of the series, and the odd appearance of a kid brother where a kid sister used to be. But the inevitable plot twist fetish doesn’t really overwhelm for a good ten or twelve episodes, and the blend between narrative, character, action, drama and comedy does initially mirror that of the first series. The silliness of high school life intermixed with Lelouch’s plans for world domination still enchants, and there are still moments for utter frivolity such as the Love Attack! episode. But once the scope of the story expands outside of Japan, then there is something of a character overload, Britannian Knights of the Round are introduced, as well as several notable figures in the Chinese Federation, and the smaller, more frivolous plots are overshadowed as a result.


When I think about the concluding half of the series, the train analogy comes to mind again. It’s not so much about the destination as it is the journey, and in that regard Code Geass R2 really turns out to be an exceptionally entertaining ride. It’s best to let your mind relax, and just take in the imagery, enjoy the experience, and try not to think about the technicalities of just how you’re being transported. Think too much about how this particular train is put together, and you might want to call the Health and Safety Executive. But when you look outside and see the equivalent of nukes being lobbed around, and whole mountains exploding, as well as mecha battles so epic that leave your face plastered with a silly grin, then you just feel grateful for buying a ticket.


When all is said and done, and the twisty-turny, utterly contrived, and at times daft journey through Code Geass R2 comes to a conclusion, and you wind up scratching your head at what you have just experienced, the show delivers a conclusion to its story that is so right, so perfect, so deserved that it almost makes up for it all, and you wind up forgiving all its shortcomings, and its failure to live up to the first series. Just like the best moments of that first series, the show leaves you with your mouth agape at the audacity of the final development, shocked and awed, but satisfied that no other ending could ever be as appropriate.


While the episodes are there, the extras are not, which given that the first season managed to have them makes this second season comparatively disappointing. This DVD release from Kazé ought to be a last resort purchase if you are after the show in this format. I’d even consider upgrading to Blu-ray at this point for the extra resolution, and lack of compression, as well as the native progressive frame rate. But if that isn’t an option, then while the Beez release of Code Geass may be hard to find brand new now, there are still a few Region 1 Bandai copies floating around at certain e-tailers, and Australia’s Region 4 Madman release is still out there. That way you’ll get the extra features, and you probably won’t have the trouble with UPOPed discs and borked subtitling.